The following quote about trade is from an essay on economics at the time of Odysseus in archaic Greece. It is interesting to note that at that time trade was motivated by a need for imports whereas to us it is based on the need to export in order to maintain or create jobs.

Here in British Columbia where a lot of our economy has been based on forestry, mining and fishing, we might be better off if we had taken the first approach and looked for other ways for out people to have a comfortable standard of living.

Odyssean trade differed from the various forms of gift-exchange in that the exchange of goods was the end itself. In trade things changed hands because each needed what the other had, and not, or only incidentally, to compensate for a service, seal an alliance, or support a friendship. A need for some specific object was the ground for a transaction; if it could be satisfied by other means trade was altogether unnecessary. Hence, modern parlance, imports alone motivated trade, never exports. There was never a need to export as such, only the necessity of having the proper goods for the counter-gift when an import was unavoidable.

(The quote of from M.I. Finley, The World of Odysseus, Chaper 3 , reprinted in Tribal and Peasant Economies, Readings in Economic Anthropology, edited by George Dalton and published in 1967, page 411.)

Free ebook

Cover Notes

After my first family broke up I went to the University of British Columbia and did a degree in economics because I was intrigued by the way in which money is created and because I wanted to understand the dynamics of how we exchange goods and services.

I concluded economics is mostly about relationships and we should evaluate economic policies by how they contribute to good relationships.

We have two major economic problems with which we should be dealing. The first is that while we have lots of energy and mineral resources left on this planet, we have used up the most easily accessible. Those that are left require an excessive amount of energy to extract. The second major problem is that our so-called "market" economy is largely based on legislation which restricts competition and thus allows some people an unequal share of the agricultural surplus.

To deal with these problems we need to focus our economy on a policy of sharing in the same way that families and people in small-scale societies share their food. We also need a universal guaranteed income scheme AND a new way of creating money. This would be a tremendous transfer of decision-making power from governments and bankers to individuals.

In this book you will learn:

why the economic principles of marginal cost and the elasticity of the demand curve say it should be priced at 99 cents.

why relationships are an important part of economics.

what it takes to make a good relationship.

that our civilization is based upon a huge agricultural surplus which should be considered an inheritance to be shared equally by everyone.

how the financial and the physical aspects of the economy interact.

how money is created out of thin air and the problems this creates for our well being.

how we can finance a guaranteed annual income scheme.

how to become a part of the ten percent,

how not to become a slave.

The list of ebook stores from which you may download this book is at the top of the home page.

Free ebook

You may download a free copy of this ebook from Smashwords
click here
Use the coupon code LE78V

Posts according to the number of times they have been viewed as of April 2012